In my 20s, living in Boston, I thought I would never be successful until I had a job that required me taking the “T” (train) to work. When I watched my college friends get jobs in big, shiny office buildings downtown, I thought that was the only way: I was going to climb the corporate ladder, make money, be successful, meet a husband, and live the American Dream.

Instead, my career path went like this:

• Sales and design in a Brookline sign shop
• Purchasing and promo design in dad’s nanotech manufacturing firm
• Yoga Teacher Training in between aforementioned, plus teaching on the side
• Host of online music show for startup company (plus many other acting gigs)
• Back to dad’s company (hanging head in shame)
• Marketing gig at Cambridge Agency (for almost a decade)

By the time I got to my marketing gig, I was so desperate to feel legitimized in the workplace that I smashed myself (a very square peg) into the job (a very round hole). What I liked: my boss (a dear friend), working with people, being creative, attending big meetings in the city, strategizing with brilliant minds in tech. What I didn’t like: constant stress, never-ending drama, and fires to put out. I wasn’t overly passionate about most of the tech we were supporting, wasn’t very good to my body, and was too stressed out to be the mother and wife I wanted to be for my family.

What happened? I drank more than I should have and felt a constant strain in my marriage from both of us working so hard. Even though teaching yoga had me up at ungodly hours, I clung to it like a lifeboat. It was the only thing in my life that helped me regulate the overwhelming pressure cooker I had created for myself in a healthy way. The voices around me and in my head had two very opposite ideas:

• STAY: “You need this job and have to support your kids. You’ll never make this much money doing anything else. You have to sacrifice your dreams (yoga and acting) for your kids.”
• LEAVE: “You are very stressed out – ALL THE TIME. There’s got to be a better way.”

But, it’s funny – when you’re used to beating yourself up, you get really good at just “sucking it up.”

Fast forward two years: I live in California, I teach a shit load of yoga, and with my extra time, I contract on the side. Physically and emotionally, the balance is much better for me and I love what I do! But, I’m still figuring out some of the other sides of it, and often feel guilty for my much-reduced income. I constantly go back and forth thinking, “Should I go back to work? I should. Should I? I Should. But, really?”

I recently picked up the book Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Path of Fulfillment, which catalogues multiple unlikely underdogs and charts their path to success. The point of the book is to reveal the one thing that made these people blindingly-successful masters in their field. It all comes back to the word fulfillment, find something you really fucking love, and be excellent at that thing. You might still have to work your ass off and it will be hard, but it will feel “good hard,” and you will very likely carve out an extremely rewarding path for yourself.

In a world where we’ve been fed a traditional path, those who buck that path are often cast aside. Go to college, get your masters, work your way up, be better than everybody around you, then you will be successful. Dark horses don’t always work well that way. Instead, we meander a bit, trying to smash ourselves into those round holes when we are very much a different shape – larger and wider than the systems that were built to corral us toward a very structured outcome. 

It was nice to read that my path isn’t shameful and doesn’t make me dumb, lazy, or less than. It just makes me a bit of a dark horse. To my fellow dark horses, who feel in your bones something different might be calling you, keep listening. When you hear it, start moving toward it. If it’s not perfect, keep going. Adapt, adjust, change, try again, adapt again, let people tell you you’re crazy, but keep walking.

Just. Keep. Going. You’re gonna get there. For a yoga sequence and playlist inspired by my inner dark horse, check out my blog.